#biography — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #biography, aggregated by home.social.
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257 years ago today, #AlexanderVonHumboldt was born. The Invention of Nature is a delightful biography that paints a lively portrait of this ever-restless polymath, showing he was a force of nature.
https://inquisitivebiologist.com/2025/02/11/book-review-the-invention-of-nature-the-adventures-of-alexander-von-humboldt-the-lost-hero-of-science/#Books #BookReview #Bookstodon #Biography #HistoryOfScience #ScienceHistory #HistSci #Scicomm @andrea_wulf
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I just finished reading _Prairie Fires_, by Caroline Fraser, a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was fascinating, I learned a lot I didn't know before, and it left me with a lot of thoughts. I really enjoyed the author's thorough research, going through things like Civil War draft records (Pa was a draft dodger, the books left that out somehow), testimony to congress about how non-viable small-scale farming in the Dakotas was going to be, and tons of letters and diary entries as well as drafts of the Little House books. I was especially struck by the part about Caroline Ingalls' (Ma's) childhood: the malnourishment for several years after her father died especially. Her sister apparently told Laura about that time period much later, Caroline never did. Caroline's father had been a silversmith in the East before moving to Wisconsin, but in Wisconsin he died on a ship that sank in Lake Michigan while transporting lumber to somewhere further East. This makes me wonder why somebody with skills in a trade moved to Wisconsin and took on a trade he didn't know how to do. Now I think the way the Little House books portrayed Ma was deeply unfair, in the name of making a better story. This biography focuses a lot on economic history, and argues that the reason the family kept moving wasn't Charles Ingalls' (Pa's) desire to live independently from others like the Little House books say, it was because he was poor. Every time a farm failed, he didn't have much choice but to try elsewhere. And because he was poor to start with, the farms he was able to get weren't going to be economically viable, ever. The biography also really drove home for me what a gigantic government giveaway the Homestead Act was: not only did the government give the stolen Native American land to White farmers for almost free, most of the time once they just barely survived on it long enough to get the deed, they sold that land and moved elsewhere, because farming it was never going to work, but they walked off with the profit from selling that land. I felt like this biography did a fairly good job covering the Native American side of the story especially for Wisconsin in the 1860's, but the book is about the White farmers, so the Native American side of the story is a small proportion of pages. A large part of the biography focuses on Rose Lane (Laura's daughter and editor/co-author). I had no idea how exploitative, chaotic, and impetuous she was. What a mess. The bits in the book from Lane's diaries and letters were fascinating, if aggravating. She really had no ethics when it came to publishing either journalism or novels. I knew Lane was a libertarian, but I didn't know she was one of the founders of U.S. libertarianism. It's also especially interesting how both Wilder and Lane emphasize the Little House family as being all about integrity and independence, while Wilder's father and husband took advantage of every benefit and government handout they could get, lying when necessary to get it, or downright stealing land as squatters. When people don't live up to their own values, they often aren't very good about admitting that. Anyway, it was a fascinating book with a lot of detailed research. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Fires #LittleHouse #biography #books #reading
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Such an interesting thought experiment.
A life focused on doing the things that others would leave out of the book. A notion of seductive appeal.
A touch of the Taoist action that has effects without being noticed.
But also: what might I learn about myself from the things others would put into that book, but that I myself would ignore?
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#NowWatching ”Ed Wood” (1994), #310 on the D23 list of theatrically-released feature films made by Disney (Touchstone).
One of my all-time favorite films!
I’m viewing all 800+ films IN ORDER.
The List: https://d23.com/list-of-disney-films
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia ArquetteAmbitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. tries his best to fulfill his dreams despite his lack of talent
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#NowWatching ”Ed Wood” (1994), #310 on the D23 list of theatrically-released feature films made by Disney (Touchstone).
One of my all-time favorite films!
I’m viewing all 800+ films IN ORDER.
The List: https://d23.com/list-of-disney-films
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia ArquetteAmbitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. tries his best to fulfill his dreams despite his lack of talent
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#NowWatching ”Ed Wood” (1994), #310 on the D23 list of theatrically-released feature films made by Disney (Touchstone).
One of my all-time favorite films!
I’m viewing all 800+ films IN ORDER.
The List: https://d23.com/list-of-disney-films
Directed by Tim Burton
Starring Johnny Depp, Martin Landau, Sarah Jessica Parker, Patricia ArquetteAmbitious but troubled movie director Edward D. Wood Jr. tries his best to fulfill his dreams despite his lack of talent
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https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/benji-reid-factory-international-find-your-eyes/
At the end of last night's show at #saddlerswells, Benji Reid said Find Your Eyes won’t be performed again in the UK. But if it is don’t miss it. It’s stunning. A completely unique #afrofuturist fusion of #photography, #choreography, #theatre, #dance, #music, #fashion, #design, #mime.
You might want to take what Reid himself says about it with a pinch of salt. In keeping with the current obsession with #memoir and #biography — the idea of ‘telling my story’ in ways that explore ‘universal themes’ and speak ‘to a wider audience’ (see his 2021 Laugh at Gravity publication for the #octobergallery) — he presents the work in terms that make it appear far more conventional and less imaginative than it really is. Reid is one of those #artists who may not be the best at writing about their own work. (Marina Abramović is another.) Just go and experience it.
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#Books shipping to new homes this morning.
#BookSelling #bookstodon #composers #CharlesIves #biography #photography #HongKong #Navajo #TradingPost #americana #JewishStudies #Wallenberg #history #WorldWar2
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Who remembers the #ColecoChameleon? #RetroMagazine? #GameGavel?
"Smoke And Mirrors" is book that accounts their "rise" and fall written by somebody who was involved and had inside information that has never been published before.
Check it out here:
👉https://www.thevideogamelibrary.org/book/smoke-and-mirrors-the-rise-and-fall-of-a-serial-antripreneur#MikeKennedy #Gaming #VideoGames #VideoGame #Retro #GameGavelNetwork #Coleco #RetroVGS #Kickstarter #Book #Books #Bookstodon @bookstodon #Scam #Gamer #GamingHistory #VideoGameHistory #SmokeAndMirrors #Game #Biography